


Traces

by meanderingsoul



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Angst and Porn, Callousness, F/M, Memories, Need, Past Relationship(s), Roughness, Season/Series 06, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:03:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: May checked the door again and the color of the light on the camera in the corner before she dropped her jacket to the floor.





	Traces

**Author's Note:**

> This fic went with a _different_ scenario for May storming into Sarge's cell at the end of 6x9.

“I know you’re not much of a talker, so get to it,” he said. The blank, slightly annoyed expression on his face was completely unfamiliar.

May really did hate it.

“Shut up and hold still.”

He actually did, but Sarge kept staring.

The fabric of his shirt was worn thin, crumpled silently under her fingers when she pushed up his left sleeve.

She already knew what she’d see. It was the first thing they’d verified. There was no seam, no scar, no metal. Nothing visible. Nothing when she traced a patch of skin with a fingertip. May knew how Phil’s skin had healed around the anchor point, the cap that had protected it.

When she dropped his sleeve to tug up his shirt the scar wasn’t there. None of Phil’s scars were there, few other scars to replace them. If he’d been traveling planet to planet chasing Shrike for so many years there should be other scars, not just the familiar birthmark. This didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.

“What are you looking for?” he asked, and she could hear the impatience because it had been the same in Phil’s voice and she hated that too. “You’ve all already had a good stare at my arm.”

“Just shut up.”

May turned him around with a tight grip on his shoulder, but didn’t shove. This wasn’t a fight.

His back was just as blank, missing every familiar scar. But all of Phil’s summer freckles were there. But they _couldn’t be_.

She let go of the shirt, watched it slide back into place, slowly let her skull tip forward to rest against the warm shoulder blade in front of her. May’s arms slid around his waist without thinking. Habit.

With her eyes closed it was just Phil’s broad back and almost the same way he smelled after they sparred and she just couldn’t…

“Did he like you to hold him like this?” Sarge murmured and it almost sounded curious. It was almost halfway nice.

May let go like it burned, stalked away towards the door. She shouldn’t have done that. That was stupid. She’d already known what she’d see. It didn’t help.

“Anything _else_ you wanted?” he called, and she froze. “I’m not really sure you’re emotionally stable, but I’d get it if you did. This has gotta be convenient for you in a way.”

The leering edge in his voice made it obvious what he meant, what he was offering, like it would maybe be the last straw.

If Phil’s voice in an unfamiliar snarl while familiar hands choked her hadn’t done it and if blinking into sudden, sharp awareness in the middle of a fight that she was staring down at her thumb and considering doing damage to what looked like one of Phil’s pretty blue eyes hadn’t done it, hadn’t made her lose her control, the offer of a fuck with familiar cock wasn’t going to do it.

Or maybe it was the last straw in a way. This kind of frustrated, useless anger had always made her blood run hot, always got her closer to making stupid mistakes than anything else could but blood loss or heavy drugs. She’d done it with Ward. When she’d held Lash’s hand on the way to the quinjet.

Apparently she was going to do it here too.

May checked the door again and the color of the light on the camera in the corner before she dropped her jacket to the floor.

She went ahead and snorted audibly at his surprised expression, unfastened her jeans. “You offered.”

The startled look vanished behind the carefully blank arrogance Sarge wore most of the time. “I did. You’ve got me there.”

He hadn’t moved. May walked towards him, light on her feet, the right sway in her shoulders, bit down on her last shred of restraint and put her hands on his arms.

But she lurched away when he leaned down as if to kiss her, covered his mouth with her hand and didn’t look up.

“Don’t you dare.” Apparently she could be reckless enough, or selfish enough to fuck him and pretend she was somewhere else, but the thought of kissing him made her feel sick.

“If you’re sure,” he muttered teasingly against her fingers, amused again.

She was very sure, about this at least. Not much else this month. “Don’t talk.”

She turned him towards the wall again, shoved his shirt up out of the way, same as before except this time he yanked it off. This time she let her eyes close halfway, smoothed her palms up his back and down again to caress his belly. It was easy to feel the hitch in his breathing.

There’d been a little while she’d gotten to do this, hug him close from behind, rub her cheek on his back. Not really long enough to get used to having it. Not long enough at all.

May sighed, put all that away. That wasn’t what this was about.

“See, I actually buy that this is something you do about as much as I buy anything else you’ve said.” The mocking laughter in his face made it easy to say, easy to say it cold. Any curiosity that might have been coming from him before was gone. “Got anything transmissible?”

“If you mean pathogens, no. Like you said, I’m a busy guy,” he said with that smug, fake lightness that still sounded so alien.

When he pushed away from the wall she let him, let him unfasten his pants while she pulled her boots off and tried not to think. She still never really took her eyes off him. That was one stupid risk too many.

Sarge sat down on the narrow bed with his hand on himself. Staring.

But bare legs was as undressed as she was getting for this. This was just a fuck. She didn’t need him petting her.

Sarge pointed briefly at her stomach. “Is _that_ a problem, or do terrans have seasons or something?”

It only stung for a moment. “I’m past all that. Now shut up.”

He laid back easily with her hand against his chest. Firm warm muscle that was familiar. A smooth patch of skin in the center that was not.

Kneeling over him facing away wasn’t that strange, bracing a hand on the crumpled fabric over his thigh. She’d done this kind of thing so many times, just never with Phil.

She mouthed her fingers wet enough to slick herself, too impatient to do more. She wasn’t really wet yet, but her muscles throbbed. This had to be quick anyways.

It still took a squirm, took more than her body weight to sink onto him. The stretch was sharp, but settled warm in her gut. Her body didn’t know any better, was getting wet quickly from the familiar touch.

Two hands slowly settled loose on her hips and she ignored them.

May kept her eyes closed, finally rode down on him how she knew she liked, like she had before, remembering in the way she couldn’t let herself too often. Fingers in her hair and kisses on her spine. In his lap riding him slow with his arms cradling her shoulders.

Thank fuck she didn’t crave this in the same ways she’d used to. It’d been bad enough the first time she’d had to relearn how to just fuck someone when she was used to having a lover.

She hadn’t intended to relearn this time at all.

But the hands on her hips went bruising tight and that memory snapped and with an angry growl she let it, thrust back hard, rocked against his cock in little shifts where it rubbed her just right but she knew he could barely feel it.

His legs shifted under her hands, heels on the bed. He finally thrust up into her, that little bit rougher she needed right now. He finally made a sound, a quiet little sound. But it wasn’t quite right.

May had no illusions she couldn’t be cruel too. “Did you even remember how this feels?”

“Thought you didn’t want to talk,” he gritted out.

Hard and fast and artless was what she’d been after and this would work fine. May was starting to sweat a little, starting to feel it slick when she moved, feel the hot throb when she twitched inside.

She’d never admit it startled her when he moved behind her, pulled away so carelessly it made her gasp, sat up on his knees and shoved her forward and thrust back inside her _deep_, immediately did it again.

That was good. That was too good. It took a moment of groaning loud into the thin mattress before May gritted out, “You try and pin my arms I break your wrist.”

“Fair enough.”

His hands stayed tight on her hips. She could tell from his voice pinning her by the elbows or wrists hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Her elbows dug into the bed to keep from getting shoved forwards, to let her roll back against the harsh thrusts. This was what she’d needed, if she was going to bother to acknowledge _need_.

“Harder. Harder, fuck…”

“Is that right? Feel familiar?” He almost sounded amused again, like this was a game.

“We never got to… not like this,” she said mostly to herself. Even if his body had been up for it, they hadn’t been in the mood to be so rough. Phil’s hands on her had been…

Of course he heard her. Sarge huffed. “Maybe he was as dumb as he looked in that hologram, huh.”

It wasn’t the right angle for a real hit, but the slap made her point, twisting back over her own shoulder to catch half his cheek and nose without looking at his face.

He only scoffed, rolled his eyes. Her anger was an annoyance barely worth acknowledging.

May turned away again, closed her eyes and braced a hand out in front of her.

For maybe a minute it stayed quiet, just harsh breathing, the overheated pleasure building in her gut. She could come like this, just like this, that harsh slick rub inside her the slope of her back keeping the pressure right. She always could, didn’t need any other touch as long as he kept…

He stopped when she was getting close so she must have made a sound, held deep enough in her it ached, hips shoved against hers in a filthy grind.

May jumped at his lips warm on her back, mouthing the sweat on her skin. Her shirt had ridden up. She squirmed a little when he traced the long scar under her shoulder with his tongue.

“I don’t remember if it felt like this. I don’t remember her at all, just where she used to be, the ragged edge…” The horrified whisper wasn’t hidden enough by her rucked-up shirt, her skin.

May didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to hear this. He almost sounded like a person.

She sat up, pushed back into his space to overbalance him, hands balanced against his knees and squeezed around him tight. “Stop talking and feel this then.”

He gasped before the angry snarl and she felt the flat of bare teeth on her shoulder, but they both knew if he bit her he’d be on the ground in seconds.

He shoved her forward back onto her hands instead, thrust hard enough to make her grunt, drop back on her elbows to get the angle just right again.

She’d been so close before but now it was _sharp_ and she shoved back into it. An electric sting and a throb in her muscles and when it finally really hit and her brain whited out it was almost, almost real relief.

She felt his hands squeeze around her hip and shoulder, a startled clutch at the feel of her. He didn’t make a sound when he came and she didn’t particularly care.

May stood up the first moment she could, still panting, pushing him back from her without looking.

She barely caught Sarge’s stunned blinking out of the corner of her eye, staring at the wall with his pants around his knees, blood at the corner of his mouth from keeping quiet.

He really didn’t remember, not sex, not the lover neither of them were sure existed. Just autopilot in a body she wasn’t sure was real. Muscle memory and only some of it. His mouth on her back had made it clear he didn’t remember how to kiss even if she ever would have let him.

None of this made any sense.

Her shirt was sweaty and her thighs were wet. It felt disgusting now. It only took a moment to get her jeans back on. She’d been about to shower and sleep anyway. After she put this memory away she might even sleep more than four hours.

“This never happened,” she said.

“Really? I think your boss might find this whole visit interesting,” Sarge said mildly.

May hummed dismissively. That wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Doubt Mack would believe you. He definitely wouldn’t ask me about it.”

“You so sure about that?” He had the right amount of threat behind the words, but it just wouldn’t work.

May neatly laced her boots. “They all still trust me not to take stupid risks.”

“For now.”

That was the real problem.

She hadn’t told them Sarge was mimicking Coulson when he spoke. This could be a copy of a body, could be any number of horrible things, even with the freckles from a sun Sarge had never seen before. Even with the ash she’d gently tipped into a hole in the sand.

But speech patterns needed memories from somewhere. How much of Phil was buried behind her instead of on the island?

She could live with a lot of things, but not without knowing.

“Yeah. For now,” May said and locked the door without looking back.


End file.
